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101090 discussions

Compusad Compulogical Tutor User Manual Wanted

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

I am looking for a PDF or actual copy of this manual: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_904547 Thanks Bill Degnan

6 years

Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

by commodorejohn＠gmail.com

Liam Proven wrote: > I don't know. There is a huge amount of tradition and culture in > computing now, and as a result, few people seem to have informed, > relatively unbiased opinions. There hasn't been much real diversity in > decades. > > 25 or 30y ago, people discussed the merits of Smalltalk or Prolog or > Forth; now most people have never seen or heard of them, and it's just > which curly-bracket language you favour, or does your preferred > language run in a VM or is it compiled to a native binary. Agreed. While I'm much more favorably disposed towards C than you are, the increasing homogeneity of almost all modern languages is discouraging and, I think, detrimental to the field as a whole. Forth and Smalltalk alike were eye-openers when I discovered them (and Smalltalk in particular was a breath of fresh air, after I'd spent years failing to ever really grok OOP with the likes of C++ and Java,) because both presented genuinely *different* and beautifully consistent ways to think about structuring and specifying a computer program. These days, though, outside of deliberately jokey ultra-esoteric languages, it's pretty much just a bunch of domain-specific Java/Javascript knockoffs from horizon to horizon. > I am just surprised that this (to me) rather inelegant design survived > and got to market, given what you've said about the same company's > ruthless drive for cost-cutting removed one PCB trace even though it > killed floppy-disk performance, or wouldn't use an extra ROM chip > because it was too expensive. > > It seems inconsistent. It's marketing - consistency there is a non-consideration, if not actively striven against. The whole saga with CP/M on CBM was a boondoggle - the CP/M cart existed because business customers wanted a CP/M add-in to run their spreadsheets and their whatnot, but it didn't end up being a good fit for reasons already stated (slow CPU, slow disk, 40-column only.) The 128 improved on those points, but not nearly enough to become competitive with the advancements CP/M machines had made in that time, and in the process wasted precious man-hours and drove up the cost and complexity of the unit - and all the while CP/M had been losing ground to MS-DOS in the business market for years! But marketing promised it, so it had to happen... :/

6 years

Amiga Joke of the Century

by healyzh＠avanthar.com

Tuesday night I was reading up to see what it might take to revive either of my Amiga 1200?s. As it happens, both appear to have fairly common failure modes. In reading up on the dead video, I learned that it?s often on the Composite Out, but not the monitor. I bought these two systems around ?97/98. I plugged the one with the dead video into the Monitor I?m using, and proceeded to use it for about an hour and a half. It works great with the Gotek floppy emulator. On a whim, earlier today, when I placed the order with AmigaKit for A3000 batteries, I included the hardware needed to put a IDE-to-CF interface in both the A600 & an A1200, PLUS, a second Gotek. :-) It looks like I?m going to need them. :-) Zane

6 years

Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by boris＠summitclinic.com

Funny how wetware memory works. I have that issue of Popular Electronics somewhere in my collection and would have seen the article as I would read it cover to cover after it arrived in mail. While looking at the issue again, remembered reading next article on PLL's so probably read the Cyclops article, decided that $25 was way too much for one chip and never bothered. However, I do have a lot of old RAM chips so might give it a try some day. What I do recall about that era that a 1024 bit SRAM cost about $10 in Canada. (That was in days when we made a profit selling beer for $0.25 at TGIF). Boris Gimbarzevsky >I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? > >It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing >an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of >Cromemco literature and hardware. > >I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM >chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after >the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions >I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco >Cyclops having preceded it. > >Tim N3QE

6 years

Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Bill, thanks in particular for the reference to the August 1976 Cromemco catalog. I definitely remember the Dazzler graphics on the cover but somehow had lost memory of the camera on the second to last page. Tim

6 years

DEC Alphaserver 4100 CPU fans

by rlloken＠telus.net

So gentlemen, my Alphaserver 4100 shut itself down with a sad announcement about a dead CPU fan. I have a parts mule which has donated a CPU fan a couple years ago and I can take the second and last CPU fan from there but then I have no more fans. Can the CPU fan be obtained? Can they be rebuilt? The 4100 has a series of fans between the 3 power supply slots and the main backplane which I found could not be easily obtained so I tore them all apart and replaced the bearings with good results but I suspect that the lttle CPU fans will not respond so well to attempts at repair. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear, Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!" ** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black

6 years

Ever seen a Cromemco Cyclops in the wild?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

I think a Stanford AI lab has one in a display case. Any others out there? It was supposedly "commercial" but I don't even remember ever seeing an ad for the Cyclops from Cromemco and I had a really good stash of Cromemco literature and hardware. I do remember the BYTE article where you pop the top off of a DRAM chip to make a Camera but that was 1983-ish, nearly a decade after the Cromemco Cyclops was supposedly "commercial". In the discussions I had in the 80's none of us seemed to know about the Cromemco Cyclops having preceded it. Tim N3QE

6 years

Kennett Classic Open / Looking for a Linux/scripting programmer $$

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

The Kennett Classic Gallery of Computing history and shop has re-opened per State of PA and County of Chester guidelines. I am looking for volunteers to help with moving some large DEC racks into the basement area, we decided to expand exhibits to one more room to make space for the bigger iron, printers, VAX systems, etc. We are installing new exhibits this month and any help would be appreciated. I am also looking for a Linux scripting poss. Python programmer for a paid project through my web programming business (degnanco.com) if anyone here is interested in a project. Contact me privately. Kennett Classic 126 S Union St. Kennett Square, PA 19348 484 732 7041 kennettclassic.com -Bill Degnan-

6 years

Old communications software

by sales＠elecplus.com

If any of you are looking for new in box Lantastic or Hayes Smartcom software, I have some for sale. https://elecshopper.com/Communications-Software-c47411005 Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

6 years

WTB: 64K S-100 board, Hard Sectored 5.25" floppies

by ethan＠757.org

Looking for a CompuPro RAM 16 or something similar that will work in an IMSAI 8080. Also looking for a few hard sectored (10 sector) 5.25" floppies Reply off list! Thanks! - Ethan O'Toole

6 years

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